Joachim Piccard (madwatchmaker) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2008-08-20 17:54:00 |
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Current mood: | ecstatic |
Monday evening, 14 September 1942, in Odd's Lane and at the Ministry offices in Londinium...
Joachim Piccard had run outside and was standing in the street looking up at the glowing gash in the sky outside Kulkarni’s Imports and Curry House, only dimly aware of the rain on his face, in his hair. He was always delighted when he figured things out, and this was something extraordinary. “I do,” he said, “I know how that works.” He looked up into the void beyond and wondered what was there, behind the lightning, but only for a minute. Something was watching them. Sharolt, or Niccolò, would have known what to call it; one, but not both of them.
Viresh’s voice was still a little panicky, and Joachim realised then that they had followed him outside, Viresh and another man, and a woman. The other man, who looked like someone who belonged in a laboratory, was staring at him. “You do?”
“I do,” said Joachim, and caught himself just before he admitted that he knew some of the people who’d worked on the project. “They’re inverting some of Tesla’s work, that’s part of it. I’m not sure how they broke the city ward, but if we could disrupt the Teleforce field…”
“Tesla? Of course, why didn’t I see that?”
Joachim grinned at the other man, but then, the other man frowned. “Disrupt it?”
Joachim shrugged, hands still shoved in his pockets. “It’s meant to be a field effect, protective…but they’re using it offensively.” Finally, he noticed that Viresh was standing next to him, looking cold, wet and miserable. “You should go inside,” he said gently, his voice softening. “It would be terrible if you got hurt.”
Viresh shook his head. “If…if I can help, I want to, I don’t want to leave you!”
Joachim felt something in his chest, a tugging sort of sensation that came over him, almost an ache. “I’m not sure you can,” he said, “and you’re fragile, you know.”
The other man blinked. “Corinne,” he said to the woman beside him, “you should go too. You’ll be safer behind the wards.”
Viresh bit his lip, then shook his head. “No, please, you never know, I could be useful somehow.”
Joachim raised one eyebrow. He knew Viresh loved him and didn’t want to leave him, and then it occurred to him: Viresh was an employee of Mysteries, which meant he might have done some work in the dirty tricks department. “Do you know anything about artificery or physics?”
“No, not as such, but you don’t work where I do without picking up a few useful talents along the way,” Viresh replied.
Joachim considered this, then shrugged. “Stay close to me,” he said sharply, and glanced at the woman.
“I’m staying,” she said firmly.
“Do we even know what we’re doing?” Joachim glanced at the other man thoughtfully; they were really doing this, weren’t they? Of course the War Bureau was already working on the problem, but they were probably trying to repair the city wards, and what Joachim wanted to do was send the lightning back where it was coming from. “My equipment is all in Viresh’s flat, and most of it’s in boxes. And all of it’s designed for smaller projects than this—I can jury-rig something, but…”
The other man frowned. “All my larger equipment is in the lab. All I’ve got is what’s in my pockets. Wires, crystals, a few tools…but I do have a prototype of Tesla’s earthquake machine in the lab.”
“If we’re going to use crystals to disrupt that, we’re going to need a rather large array. Even a healer’s points would be useful…” Joachim had been thinking out loud, not really listening, but when he heard the last sentence, he glanced up sharply. “You have the earthquake machine?”
“Yes. We’ve been running tests, and figured out why the Muggles couldn’t make it work.”
Joachim’s heart caught fire with sheer glee. “That’s amazing. Earth and air…can we get it right now? We need to close that up, or it isn’t going to matter what kind of wards Kulkarni’s got up. There’s something behind all that, and if it’s already got through the wards that Kyteler has on the city…”
“It’s in my lab at the Ministry. The lightning doesn’t seem to be heading there yet.”
Joachim frowned. That made no sense. “I wonder what’s in Odd’s Lane?”
“You’ll need these?” the woman interrupted, holding out a small velvet pouch: a healer’s points. So, she was a healer.
Joachim took the crystals. “Thanks. If he works for the Ministry, they can probably get you more; this will almost certainly detune them. I suppose we head for to the Ministry,” he told Viresh. “It’ll probably be locked down. Do you have the clearance to get in?”
The man from the Ministry grinned. “No problem, so long as we’re only going to the lab. Let’s go, then.”
Joachim took Viresh firmly by the arm and followed their leader down the deserted streets. “Stay close to me,” he said, and glanced at the healer. “You too.”
Viresh nodded wordlessly. “Fine,” said the healer, with a worried glance at the sky.
Joachim smiled at her, although he hadn’t a clue who she was, or even who her companion was. He liked it that they were as willing as he was to do what had to be done.
“The earthquake machine works best at the intersection of leys,” the other man explained as they walked. “That’s why the Muggles could never reproduce it—they were never in the right place. Once we get it and figure out how to modify it, we’ll still need to find the right location to use it.”
“That I don’t know,” Joachim mused. “I’m not from around here. But if you reversed the polarities, couldn’t you work with the intersection of forces on the other side? They’ll be in some kind of locus potestas—something much better than an intersection of random leys. And even if we knew where the best place to use it was here, there’s no guarantee that they won’t be targeting that. I would, if I were them.”
“Instead of pulling energy from the ground and converting it to motion, we pull it from the sky and discharge it into the ground?” The other man glanced at him sceptically.
Joachim shrugged. “The sky is spitting it out at us. We might as well make use of it.”
“That could work,” the other man said as they reached the Ministry buildings. There was no guard on duty, and the wards would only admit him.
Joachim stopped him before he went in. “Are you going to be able to get everything out by yourself?” He didn’t want to admit that he could go through the walls, and he thought it might be dangerous, here; but if they had to do it…
“No, the device itself is quite small. I’ll just grab it and my toolkit and be right back.”
“Bring anything else that might help then, but hurry.” Joachim was more than a little relieved. As much as he’d have liked to see the laboratory, he’d hadn’t fancied explaining how he was going to get in.
“Right.”
Joachim stared balefully at the warded door after their compatriot had gone inside. “I wonder what’s on the other side of town that they’re not targeting this building?” he wondered aloud. “The hospital? No, that’s not far… Maybe they don’t know where they’re aiming?” It was possible that they couldn’t see through the wards, but he wasn’t sure. It would be nice to know.
“It’s mostly residential, it makes no sense to be aiming over there, unless it’s to frighten people,” Viresh said, shaking his head.
“I wonder who lives there,” Joachim mused. He glanced at the woman. “You’re a healer, I take it?”
“I am. Are you in the same field of research as Eliot?” she asked.
“I don’t actually…work,” Joachim said awkwardly, though he was grateful to have a name for the other man. “I own a business, but I inherited it, and the lawyers manage it. Artificery is something of an avocation.” He sighed. “To be honest I was something of a recluse, until I met Viresh.”
That made Viresh smile. “So was I,” he said softly.
Joachim laughed. “You had a job,” he pointed out. “At Mysteries.”
The woman seemed to be less than amused. Viresh chuckled softly and shrugged at her. Joachim glanced nervously from one to the other, and even more nervously up at the sky. “I wonder what’s taking him…” He swallowed. Of course he knew what was taking him. Wards and guards and people he didn’t much want to meet anyway. “Should I assume that the two of you know one another?”
“We’ve met before,” Viresh said with another shrug: evasive, or diplomatic, or something like that.
“Well, I haven’t met her before,” said Joachim. “I’m Trevelyan.”
The healer shook his hand when he offered it. “Corinne Allison, and I’d say it’s nice to meet you but given the circumstances…” she trailed off with a smile that was almost a wince and a brief head tilt.
“It’s all right,” said Joachim. “This isn’t a pleasant circumstance to meet anyone in.” In point of fact this was a lie; Joachim was having more fun than he’d had in a while outside of bed, which was another kind of fun entirely. Sharolt and he had argued over various aspects of Tesla’s papers; he rather wished she could be there, although he didn’t know if she would still be able to understand what was going on.
Eliot came back out, boxes floating along behind him, and paused to check the wards at the door. “Right, I brought everything I thought we might need, and I checked the map of Londinium. This city is riddled with leys. I don’t think we should try doing this on a nexus unless we absolutely have to.”
“Wait,” said Joachim, frowning. “I know the machine works best on leys but do you want to channel all that force into the leys around here?” he asked, pointing up at the maelstrom above.
“Well, that would…” Eliot started, and then frowned. He probably didn’t know, not any more than Joachim did. “Maybe not. Probably not a good idea to do it here, either.”
“Let them deal with it on the other side,” said Joachim. “What I want to know is how close to it do we need to get?”
“I don’t know,” Eliot admitted. “As close as we can get and still be safe.” He closed his eyes.
Joachim glanced up at it. “It’s touched down more than once just in the time we’ve been talking,” he said. “The closer we get the better, and I hope you brought lots of crystals.”
Eliot nodded. “Everything we’ve got,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Great,” said Joachim, glancing back at Viresh and Corinne. “You still sure you want to come?”
Viresh nodded. “I’m not leaving you now.”
Corinne hesitated, then nodded too. Eliot grinned at her. “I’m not exactly convincing you that I’ve learned my lesson about experimenting with things I don’t understand, am I?”
“No, but I won’t fault you for it. This time, anyway,” she said, with a bit of a laugh.
“Well,” said Joachim firmly, “I think we do understand it. At least as well as anyone else does.”
“Anyone but Tesla,” Eliot pointed out.
“Anyone here, then,” said Joachim cheerfully, and shook his head to get the water out of his eyes. He glanced down at Viresh. “You all right?”
Viresh nodded, reaching up to wipe some of the water away from his face. “Don’t worry about me. We’ll all be all right once you get this thing to work.”
“I’m a little less familiar with the earthquake machine than I am with the other,” Joachim said quietly, “but since Mr…” He glanced at Eliot.
“Gardiner, but call me Eliot. And you are?”
“Trevelyan,” said Joachim; it got easier every time. “Since Eliot built this one, I’m fairly confident we’re good here.”
“We’re about to find out,” Eliot said, grinning. “Anywhere on this street should be fine. We need to attach it to some sort of solid framework…” He looked around and pointed to a house with boards over the windows and broken glass outside them; someone had painted nasty slogans across one wall, and there were pieces of a dismantled printing-press scattered in front. He pulled out the earthquake generator and attached it to a corner of the house. “It’s actually very simple; it just needs a bit of tuning to find the resonant frequency.”
“How do you want the array set up?” Joachim inquired, fishing crystals out of the box. “If she’s a Healer, she should be able to help. The principles are similar to those involved in healing arrays; we use the points to direct the energy flow.”
“I can help, too, I was trained,” Viresh volunteered.
“Let’s see,” said Eliot. “We’re going to want to reverse the energy flow, so it flows into the earth instead of pulling from it.” He tweaked the controls as he spoke until he could feel a faint pulsing underfoot.
“Interlaced,” said Joachim, who was busy instructing Viresh and Corinne as they laid out the stones, and hadn’t really processed what Eliot had just said. “Interlace the array as deeply as you can with what you’ve got. Set it just a little off true at first; I want to see what it does before we go to full power.”
Eliot followed along behind Corinne, occasionally reversing her work. Joachim nodded approvingly and set to monitoring Viresh. The lightning had touched down several times, but not too close; they could, however, smell fire and smoke through the rain.
“It’s ready,” said Eliot. “I’ll let you handle it from here.”
Joachim peered at the machine, memorising it. It was as queer as all of Tesla’s works, but perfectly logical. Sharolt would have liked it. Something about the settings didn’t feel right, though.
“Do you need any help figuring it out?” Eliot asked.
“I need you to give it a test pulse now,” said Joachim.
“Right,” Eliot said, as he set the device in motion. The ground began to shake under their feet; Corinne yelped and stumbled, and Viresh grabbed hold of Joachim’s arm, his eyes wide.
Joachim frowned at Eliot and shut it off himself. “We need to reverse the polarity. It’s shaking the ground. We do not know what venting that much energy into the local leys will do to them or to the local gating matrices!”
“Yes. If I reverse this,” he said, “and connect it here…” Eliot looked carefully at the hybrid device. “That should do it.” He looked at Trevelyan for approval.
Joachim nodded. “Okay, Viresh, those two stones are off true, will you line them up?”
Viresh nodded and aligned the stones as precisely as he could.
“Magistra Allison? Can you wire that down a bit better on your side?”
Corinne nodded and attempted to do just that.
“All right,” said Joachim, and jumped as a bolt hit the rod on top of a house nearby. “I think we’d better get this done soon.”
Eliot nodded emphatically. “Let me know when it’s ready to try again.”
“Now would be good?” Joachim suggested, a nervous edge in his voice as he looked up at the sky.
“Right,” Eliot said, and turned on the device again. His hair was standing on end from the energy in the air, and Joachim reached up impulsively to smooth his own. A few sparks jumped from the crystal array to the earthquake device.
“That’s better,” said Joachim, grabbing Viresh round the waist and pulling him close just as the crystal nearest Corinne turned bright purple and cracked with a jolt, sending her flying back a few feet. And then the earth began to shake for real.
“I don’t think those polarities are reversed,” Joachim shouted, glancing at Corinne, who appeared to be gathering herself together, although she didn’t attempt to stand up just yet.
Eliot spared a quick look to make sure Corinne was all right before turning back to the device. “No, it seems to be fine—it’s just pulling more energy than we expected.”
“It’s all down here,” said Joachim firmly, staring at him in utter irritation as the loose gutters and trim on several houses were shaking loose, and the gash in the sky opened up even wider, tendrils of crackling light reaching down to them ominously. “It’s going to vent right into the local ground, Eliot! I’m sure Grindelwald would be very pleased if we took out the local gating matrices and cut Londinium off from the transport networks, but I don’t think Kyteler will!”
Eliot frowned and turned it off again. “The theory’s right, there’s just too much energy. There’s got to be some way to disperse it.”
“It needs to go UP,” said Joachim. He pointed both fingers at the sky for emphasis, just as a lightning bolt came down and struck the rod on a nearby house.
“It’s coming from up,” Eliot countered. “However…you said they’re inverting Tesla’s work. Can you reverse that? Use it against them?”
“That’s only what I’ve been trying to say for the last—what did you think I was trying to do?” Joachim leaned over and looked more closely at the machine, swore in Italian and German, and flipped three switches. “Look! It needs to go back up where it came from, invert their field and let it collapse on them! Otherwise, however much we dissipate they’ll just send more! That’s what Teleforce does!”
Viresh stared at it for a moment, then began to reverse some of the crystals he’d placed. Eliot looked at what he was doing and moved in to help. “Of course,” he said. “What we need is to use the geodynamic energy to reinforce the inverted field, not try to drain it.” He shifted a couple of crystals. “Probably don’t need to magnify it that much, though.”
“Yes!” said Joachim, and flung out his hand, realigning a few dozen of the crystals on Viresh’s side of the array with a single telekinetic strike. “Let me know when you’re done.”
Eliot watched him—his use of wandless magic was impressive—and then set to work. “Right, that should do it.”
Corinne was staring at them. “He just moved all those—” She took a step back and looked at Trevelyan, frowning. “You speak German!”
“I travel a lot,” Joachim growled. “Get clear!”
Once everyone was at least six feet away from the array, Joachim threw the last switch, snarling at it, and then ran for all he was worth.
A bolt of lightning came straight right down out of the gash in the sky, struck the machine and lit up the array. The ground began to shake again, but not so hard; one of the larger crystals blew, and the empty house fell in on itself. Then, in a great gout of light, the lightning shot back up into the sky and back through the tear, which closed, leaving a bright aurora in its wake.
Joachim stood there and looked at it, pondering. Eliot gazed up at the sky, awestruck. Viresh murmured something in amazed Hindi, looking up in wonder.
“I hope I didn’t break it but I think I did,” said Joachim, glancing at the earth-shaker. “Those crystals shouldn’t ever be used for anything constructive, ever again.”
“We can get more,” Eliot said distractedly. He took one last look at the sky then turned to look at the array. “Yeah, that’s pretty much done for.”
“I meant the machine,” said Joachim, looking at it sceptically. “How much damage did we cause?”
Eliot shrugged. “To the machine? That’s nothing compared to what I’ve blown up before. Besides, we’ve got the blueprints. It’s the array I’m more interested in. Don’t suppose you were keeping track of what we did?” he asked hopefully.
“I won’t forget it,” said Joachim. “I can write it down later.”
“It was brilliant, however you did it,” Viresh said, grinning at Trevelyan.
Joachim shrugged. “I never actually saw it before, it was brilliant, I wish we’d been just a bit closer, but…” His voice trailed off distractedly. After a moment he glanced back down at Viresh. “We should leave,” he said. Soon people would notice that the rent in the sky was gone, and they would come out, and then they would want to know who did it, and there would be questions. Difficult questions.
Viresh nodded a little. “Yes,” he said, not even bothering to supply a rationale. He was breathing hard. Joachim smiled at him.
“Any closer, and there wouldn’t have been enough pieces for Corinne to put back together,” said Eliot.
“Are you okay?” Joachim glanced at Corinne, reminded then that she’d fallen.
Corinne nodded, slowly. “Thanks for asking.”
Joachim glanced around. People were beginning to come out of their houses. “We really should go,” he said.
“Then let’s go,” Viresh agreed. “I want to check on things at home.”
“Yes, I need to check on the lab,” Eliot said. He started to gather up the crystals and the remains of the earthquake device. “I’d ask you to come with me, but the wards will still be up. I do want to talk to you about what we did tonight. Can you come by the Ministry tomorrow morning?”
“Maybe we should meet somewhere else,” said Joachim. “They’re not going to give me a security clearance.” He glanced at Viresh. “Viresh works for Mysteries. Maybe somewhere near there.”
Eliot frowned, but then he shrugged and agreed. “Sure, just let me know when and where.”
“We will,” said Joachim, taking hold of Viresh’s arm. “There are people coming.”
Viresh nodded. “Then let’s go,” he agreed.
“I don’t understand,” said Corinne. “You’re acting like you’ve done something wrong. You probably just saved the city. You and Eliot.”
Joachim flushed red. “I’m not…I don’t handle crowds well?” he ventured.
“What the hell happened over here, you start shooting back?” someone called out. The voice was unpleasantly familiar and Joachim didn’t like that at all.
“Just about,” Eliot answered.
“Ours was bigger,” Joachim added gleefully, but his expression faded when he recognised Vilém Zitek.
Vilém frowned as he came up close, recognizing Joachim. “Yeah, I bet you say that to all the boys.”
“Be nice,” said the man behind him. “He’s got a bigger gun than you do for once.” He glanced around. “Nobody’s injured here?” The barest flicker of a frown crossed his face when he saw Viresh.
“Yvon, you know you shouldn’t be working!” Corinne protested. “What in the world have you been doing, you’re covered in mud! And Alessio—”
“What happened to you?” said one of the other men in the party, obviously ‘Alessio’, as he ran to Corinne. “Are you all right? You don’t look all right.”
Corinne blinked. “I’m fine, Alessio,” she said, shaking her head.
“Maybe you’re not,” said the blond man who’d warned Zitek about their ‘gun’. “Did you fall? You look like you fell. No offence, Corinne—but I’m not the only person here who’s covered in mud.”
“You should have them look at you just to be certain,” said Eliot. “We don’t have any idea what those energies might do at that range.”
“Let me, please?” Alessio asked softly.
“Let Alessio look,” said the blond, who was watching Alessio closely.
Corinne nodded. “All right,” she said, although she clearly had doubts.
Alessio smiled at her, his wet hair clinging to his forehead. Joachim watched with interest, forgetting the gathering crowd, as Alessio took Corinne’s hand, running his other hand along her back as if he needed no lenses to examine her.
Corinne blinked; he was doing something, even though Joachim couldn’t see what. “Yvon,” she said. “You know it’s dangerous for him to work like this…?”
Yvon, who had to be the blond, shook his head. “No, it isn’t,” he said, and frowned. “We shouldn’t talk about this right now. Just let him do it, all right? I can’t right now. There are going to be a lot more people who need us, and there isn’t much left of me to go round.”
“Okay,” said Corinne, though she didn’t like what was going on.
Joachim turned back to Viresh. “We should go,” he said firmly.
“So soon, Piccard? C’mon, party’s just started, why don’t you tell us what genius thing you did here,” Vilém sniped, still giving him a dirty look. “You always thought you were one hell of a genius, after all.”
Yvon groaned. “Vilém, they stopped the lightning rain, that’s genius enough for me,” he began, but Joachim put up his hand.
“I am a genius,” he said flatly. “We might all be dead if I hadn’t done what I did. Even you don’t know what was behind that, Zitek. I sure don’t.”
“That’s true,” Eliot agreed. “I couldn’t have done this without him.”
Vilém’s eyes narrowed, and then he rolled them. “I guess being off your friggin’ hinges doesn’t mean you can’t stumble into doing something right occasionally.”
“Why do you have a problem with me, Zitek? I never did anything to you,” said Joachim with a weary sigh.
“How on earth do you know these people?” Viresh asked, his eyes wide with alarm.
“It’s a long story,” said Joachim, who had just realised that Zitek had called him ‘Piccard’, which was, of course, the name of the man who had killed Viresh’s father, because Joachim had, in fact, killed him.
“Vilém,” Yvon snapped. “For God’s sake, shut up, don’t pick fights, we’re all bone tired and there is lots of work for us. I don’t feel like picking shrapnel out of you if I don’t have to.”
“He’s got a point,” Stepán said gently.
“Fine, whatever,” Vilém said, holding up his hands, but he was still glaring darkly at Joachim.
“People will think you’re in love,” Zsuzsanna teased him. Piccard frowned. He’d heard she was dead.
“Let’s just go?” Viresh suggested gently, tugging on his lover’s arm.
“Let’s,” said Joachim. “Tomorrow, Gardiner. I give you my word, I won’t tell anyone else about anything classified.” He glanced at Vilém. “See if you can get that out of them.”
alessio, artisson, corinne_camille, factbusters (Eliot Gardiner), stepan, vilem, viresh, zsuzsanna and
madwatchmaker